A Quiet Place: Day One (2022 film)

Category: Creature horror

Directed by: Michael Sarnoski

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One of the most famous quotes ever to come from the pen of English essayist Samuel Johnson was that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". The quote is not actually about patriotism itself, but critiques the insincere use of patriotism and how some individuals exploit the concept of patriotism for self-serving purposes. And if I may bastardise the quote for second, Damo the middle-aged movie reviewer thus states "prequels are the last refuge of creatively-bankrupt movie studios - who may or may not be scoundrels".

And I start off with this because the first "A Quiet Place" movie was a surprise smash hit - a surprise smash hit to the point that Paramount Pictures decided to do Paramount Pictures things and pump out a sequel. I haven't seen the sequel, but I get the impressions it didn't quite hit the same creative and box office heights as the first. And so we are faced with the age old question - what do you do when you can't advance a story further, but want to milk more out your IP? The answer - you run it back to the beginning.

So now we have "A Quiet Place: Day One", chronicling the very beginning of the monster invasion of Earth (which takes place in New York, because of course).

The plot:

Lupita Nyongo plays Sam, a woman dying from cancer and living out her days at a hospice in upstate New York, alongside her cat Frodo who keeps her company. Sam reluctantly agrees to go on an day trip to a New York City theatre (on the promise of pizza afterwards) for a marionette puppet show. Sam sneaks out for a quick bit of personal shopping then back to the theatre right at the end, and right when she thinks its pizza time, we see meteors flash across the sky and the patients are ordered back on the bus to evacuate and head back to the hospice.

Suddenly, an ambulance is attacked by a large, powerful alien creature which knocks into the bus and knocks Sam out. Sam wakes up back inside the theatre and sees Henri (Djimon Hounsou) enforce a code of silence as it has become known that whatever knocked the ambulance over, there's plenty of them out there and they're attracted to sound.

Eventually, the authorities realise the creatures can't swim so they decide to blow up all the bridges in New York and set up rescue boats to get people to safety. However, to get on a boat you need to get to the dock, so we come to the next challenge: How do you get thousands of people off an island without making a sound? Sam realises you don't, so she decides to walk against the human tide right and to relative safety before the noisy throng attracts the creatures.

In the chaos, Sam loses Frodo, but Frodo finds Eric (Joseph Quinn), an English law student who decides to partner up with Sam to try survive. They make their way back to Sam's apartment where they talk about pre-creature and pre-cancer life. Sam leaves the apartment and Eric catches up to her, but in doing so awakens more creatures, forcing them to swim through a flooded subway. Turns out the creatues can swim after all (to an extent) and somehow a Brit and a terminally ill woman out-swim an alien creature hungry for human flesh

Sam and Eric end up in a church, then Eric breaks into a pharmacy to steal pain medicaton for Sam. He finds Frodo and Frodo leads him to a construction site that is being used as a breeding ground for the creatures. Frodo clearly understands the power of exposition!

To help fulfil Sam's dying wish, Eric leads her to the jazz club that her dad used to sing at, but are dismayed that the pizza place next door is closed and Eric tries to bring comfort and joy to Sam. However, the end of the movie has to happen, so Eric, Sam and Frodo walk towards a rescue boat, but also see a group of creatures along the shore. In order to distract the creatures, Sam and Eric smash car windows to set off car alarms. Eric and Frodo jump into the water and are rescued by Henri, and Eric then finds a note in his jacket from Sam thanking him and asking him to look after Frodo.

Sam then pulls the headphones out of her portable music player, attracting creatures to her as the screen cuts to black.

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Well, that was a thrill ride!

Lupita Nyongo is a helluva actress. Barely five minutes in, I bought Nyongo as a dying woman trying to survive an alien invasion. What's even more amazing is that apparently, she was afraid of cats before taking on this role, only to adopt a cat after filming finished. Good on her.

The production values on this were quite decent. Not shabby at all. The monsters are suitably scary, though I thought they couldn’t swim, hence the need for the boats - so when Sam and Eric almost died swimming away from a monster, me sensed a bit of retconning.

It's a decent movie, a good way to spend 90 minutes - definitely not the worst movie I've ever seen. The biggest quibble I have, though, was that did we really need a prequel? Whilst the sequel was inevitable, sometimes it's better if we leave well enough alone. Really, this movie only served to highlight Nyongo's acting abilities, and how annoying cats can be.

STAR RATING: 3.5/5